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It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

James F. Cooper

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James F. Cooper
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More quotes by James F. Cooper

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Contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed.
James F. Cooper
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In America, it is indispensable that every well wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of tyranny can only proceed from the publick. The publick, then, is to be watched, in this country, as, in other countries kings and aristocrats are to be watched.
James F. Cooper
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It is a misfortune that necessity has induced men to accord greater license to this formidable engine, in order to obtain liberty, than can be borne with less important objects in view for the press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.
James F. Cooper
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New York is essentially national in interest, position, pursuits. No one thinks of the place as belonging to a particular state, but to the United States.
James F. Cooper
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God planted the seeds of all the trees, continued Hetty, after a moment's pause, and you see to what a height and shade they have grown! So it is with the Bible. You may read a verse this year, and forget it, and it will come back to you a year hence, when you least expect to remember it.
James F. Cooper
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The disposition of all power is to abuses, nor does it at all mend the matter that its possessors are a majority. Unrestrained political authority, though it be confided to masses, cannot be trusted without positive limitations, men in bodies being but an aggregation of the passions, weaknesses and interests of men as individuals.
James F. Cooper
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The listeners got some such insights into their past lives, as one gets into the darker parts of the woods, when a stray gleam of sunshine finds its way down to the roots of the trees.
James F. Cooper
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The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms.
James F. Cooper
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Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
James F. Cooper
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Near the centre of that State of New York lies an extensive district of country, whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys.
James F. Cooper
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The minority of a country is never known to agree, except in its efforts to reduce and oppress the majority.
James F. Cooper
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No one, who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American commercial town, would recognise, in the repose which now reigns in the ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked amongst the most important ports along the whole line of our extended coast.
James F. Cooper
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An interesting fiction... however paradoxical the assertion may appear... addresses our love of truth- not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and principals, which is a primitive law of the human mind.
James F. Cooper
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The sight of a coward's blood can never make a warrior tremble.
James F. Cooper
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All greatness of character is dependent on individuality.
James F. Cooper
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The novice in the military art flew from point to point, retarding his own preparations by the excess of his violent and somewhat distempered zeal while the more practiced veteran made his arrangements with a deliberation that scorned every appearance of haste
James F. Cooper
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I can't see no great difference atween givin' up territory afore a war, out of a dread of war, and givin' it up after a war, because we can't help it-unless it be that the last is the most manful and honourable.
James F. Cooper
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The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.
James F. Cooper
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Liberty is not a matter of words, but a positive and important condition of society. Its greatest safeguard after placing its foundations on a popular base, is in the checks and balances imposed on the public servants.
James F. Cooper
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How easy it is for generous sentiments, high courtesy, and chivalrous courage to lose their influence beneath the chilling blight of selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who was great in all the minor attributes of character, but who was found wanting when it became necessary to prove how much principle is superior to policy.
James F. Cooper